Latium Restaurant, Berners Street London

Since Triple P has moved jobs he has been looking for a new favourite lunch-time restaurant and now he has found it.

Latium was suggested by someone who had been there for dinner and the implication seemed to be that it was a typical old style trattoria. When we took our splendid new PA along for lunch we was surprised by its modern interior (no straw covered chianti bottles here) and even more by the food.

Owner chef Maurizio Morelli is from Lazio and imports many of his ingredients direct from Rome. He specialises in ravioli which are as to the tinned stuff we had to endure when we were small as a Saturn V is to a November 5th rocket.

On our last visit we had the taleggio and walnut ravioli which was perilously close to the best tasting thing we have ever eaten. We followed this with delicious filetto di manzo and a cannelini bean sauce. Utterly gorgeous. And all for £24.50 for a set menu! The wine list is excellent, although there were a few problems with wines that had run out. But we settled for a Vernaccia di Oristano from Sardinia which was delicious. How come a restaurant such as this can serve a stunning wine like this for £20 a bottle when for a lot more money you get paint stripper at Pizza Express? People who really know what they are doing, is the answer!

We could find only one fault with the place (they even have a completely gorgeous Italian waitress some days) and that is that they indulge in that irritating habit of keeping your wine and water somewhere else so you can't see how much you have drunk. Put it on our table! We sometimes need to make a tactical decision as to when to order another bottle!

During one of our visits two men from one of the London restaurant review organisations were ther talking to the chef. We overheard them saying that they would give them 5/5 for the food and that they should have a crack at a Michelin star. We couldn't agree more.